From 'Bad Jim' in Las Vegas to 'geezer dad' in Kenilworth

May 04, 2003|By Kristin Kloberdanz. Kristin Kloberdanz is a contributing editor for Book magazine.

James McManus scoffs when asked if he has ever felt his life was in danger while playing poker. "There's a big disparity between the image of poker, which is a bunch of grizzled tough guys smoking cigars, with bottles of whiskey and switchblades and sawed-off shotguns, and reality," says the author of "Positively Fifth Street: Murderers, Cheetahs, and Binion's World Series of Poker." "Today, 90-year-old women, 80-pound guys and computer nerds are at the table."

And occasionally a "geezer dad," as McManus humorously refers to himself, is holding the cards. The 52-year-old lives in a modest, toy-littered home in Kenilworth with his wife, Jennifer Arra, two small daughters and a rambunctious dog. The author of four novels, a collection of short stories and two books of poems, McManus is a full-time faculty member at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he has taught literature and creative writing (one of his prize students was David Sedaris) for more than 20 years.

McManus pitched Harper's Magazine in late 1999 on an article about the rise of female players in Las Vegas' annual World Series of Poker as well as the then-current trial of two people charged with murdering former casino operator Ted Binion.

While those elements are in the book, the story turned out differently after McManus, who had no real reporting experience and had never played in a professional poker tournament, ended up taking fifth place in the 2000 tournament and taking home close to $250,000. The story morphed into a memoir as well as a colorful literary treatment of "America's second-favorite pastime."

Since then, McManus' days mostly involve teaching (including a class on the literature of poker), writing, playing computer poker games and picking up sippy cups. Once a week he plays poker at a friend's house. Although he doesn't like to travel away from his family much, he has entered four big tournaments a year since his turn at the world series. He's also working on a novel (eight years in the making) set in Las Vegas and a non-fiction book about "a middle-age guy facing mortality."

Despite seeming to be blissfully immersed in the trappings of a middle-class family lifestyle, the Bronx-born McManus says he has a wild streak in him, which he nicknames "Bad Jim" in the book. "The best things that have happened to me I fought ferociously," he says, referring to his bitter divorce from his first wife, which left him "very, very, very self-destructive."

"I identified with the murder victim and one of the killers," he says, referring to Binion's murder by his stripper girlfriend and her boyfriend. "Only through good fortune did I not go down their paths. When Binion's first wife left him, he took up with a stripper and had her move in. I was lucky enough to meet a different person."

McManus says Jennifer, a former student of his, is the moral center of the book and, more importantly, of his life. "Your partnership is the primary determining factor of how things turn out," he says. "Luck is very important, but being in a stable, mutually reinforcing, loving relationship is the bottom line." He pauses and adds with a grin, "He said, sappily."